Turkish Cypriot journalist sentenced to one year in prison in Turkiye for insulting president Erdogan

Turkish Cypriot journalist Şener Levent, has been sentenced to one year in prison by a court in Turkiye for insulting president Erdogan.

The lawsuit, the second of such filed in Ankara against Şener Levent, the Director and Editor-in-Chief of Turkish Cypriot publication Afrika (formerly Avrupa) was finalised last week.

Levent, who was not present at the Ankara court was tried for his article titled “Kurds and Us” and sentenced to one year in prison in Ankara on charges of “insulting the President of the Republic of Turkey”.

In 2017, he was given a one year prison sentence by a court in Ankara after publishing a cartoon offensive to Turkish President Erdogan in his newspaper ‘Avrupa’. The cartoon originally appeared in a Greek publication.

Levent, declared that this decision by the judiciary had no validity and announced that he rejected the verdict.